The preamble: My cult and contentious reviews’ system. Designed as a time saver to highlight the potential deal breakers in a product before you commit to reading lengthy reviews on your favourites sites and/or magazines. For a more detailed description please read: THE RULES

It’s perhaps the most radical development in home television since High Definition and Widescreen, Philips’ ground breaking 21:9 ‘Cinema’ promises to bring true cinema aspect ratios to our living rooms. Yet amongst all this excitement what are the reasons to be cautious?

The preamble: My cult and contentious reviews’ system. Designed as a time saver to highlight the potential deal breakers in a product before you commit to reading lengthy reviews on your favourites sites and/or magazines. For a more detailed description please read: the Rules

Just the Bad Points Review: Philips 21:9 Cinema

The Future Shape of All Televisions?

While pixel mapping does support 16:9, 4:3 content inevitably has very thick vertical bars

21:9 name is mathematical approximation which may just further confuse public

Will the industry support it? Currently only 60 per cent of DVDs and Blu-rays have a 21:9 mode

At 20cm deep it’s not particularly slim

Not LED backlit, it’s limited to CCFL

56in is only size on offer for now

Ambilight Spectra implementation is sadly only three sided, not four

Asking Price (4,000 euros)

Launch not until June (time to save up?!)

Rivals are expected to follow suit with 21:9 models of their own, so is it better to wait?